Quote

"I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become." --Carl Jung

"You choose who you are." --LuAnn Johnson

Mushy

There are some days that I wonder if I'll ever recover the pieces of my heart that are still broken and missing.

I wonder if your heart reshapes itself and learns to love in a different way because it can't ever love the same again. Because the original pieces will never all be back in one place.

I'm feeling those missing pieces today. My heartbeat is out of sync. It feels like it is still inside another person. A person who doesn't exist. Who isn't here. Who still has a few of my pieces.

This moving on, healing, forgiveness thing is not for the faint of heart. It's for marathon runners. It's for Olympic athletes. And today I feel like the water-boy; the 7th alternate for the pole-vaulting team.

This is hard. I'm letting it be hard today. Tomorrow I may be running a half-marathon. Or practicing for my Olympic debut. You never know with this crazy d-word journey.

17 Years in 5 months

      Ira Glass is the host of the popular radio show This American Life on NPR. I sit at a desk for 9 hours a day at my job. I do repetitive tasks with spreadsheets and if you haven’t fallen asleep just reading that, you can imagine that I get very bored. I’ve gotten sucked into the world of podcasts and got hooked on This American Life. So hooked in fact that I paid for their iPhone app that holds every radio show from 1995 to the present. At the end of 2012, that will be around 884 shows. Within the next month, I will finish the last 2 years (1997-1995.) That will be just over 830 shows.
      Because I listen to about 7 hours of TAL a day, I’ve gotten to know a lot about the regular contributors to the show. Specifically, I’ve gotten to know a lot about the host, Ira Glass. Part of that is because he shares a lot about himself on the show, but I also google him several times a week. I can’t help it. I’m obsessed with him. He’s one of the best interviewers I’ve ever heard. He makes everything interesting. He conveys a genuine sense of care to anyone he talks to and he always wants to know more. I think that’s what intrigues me the most. I feel like he’s already very intelligent and yet every show he’s eager to share with his listeners the newest nuggets of information he’s gathered. He has a strange voice, he wears huge glasses, and has the dorkiest laugh. He also uses the same script for every show. Every show starts the same. “From WBEZ Chicago, it’s This American Life, I’m Ira Glass. Each week we choose a topic or theme and bring you a variety of stories about that theme. Our show this week, (title). Over the course of the next hour we will explore this topic using ________ acts. Act One, (title.) Act Two, (title.) and Act Three (title.) Our first story is by, (contributor.)  Act One, (title.) Here is, (contributor.) ”  Trust me. I’ve listened to the show over 700 times. I love the consistency. I love everything about the way the show is put together week after week. It’s pure gold.
      I started with 2012 and worked backwards. It has been hilarious to listen to the de-evolution of technology. I remember listening to a show from 1998 and in Ira’s closing statements he says, “If you’d like to purchase a cassette tape of this broadcast you can write us at WBEZ....” I cracked up in my cubical. Cassette tapes?! People were WRITING the show to purchase a CASSETTE tape?
      Another funny moment from this last week, Ira interviewed a woman about email. They were going back and forth about AOL and that little, “You’ve Got Mail” person. I was dying laughing. This lady was so overjoyed.
      I’d encourage you to give TAL a shot. I think you just might fall in love with Ira Glass too.

Favorite Episodes (in no particular order):
#454: Mr. Daisy and the Apple Factory  (follow up with #460: Retraction)
#449: Middle School
#111: Adventures in the Simple Life
#109: Notes on Camp
#90: Telephone
#370: Ruining it for the Rest of Us
#393: Infidelity (Act II, especially)

The year of music

So without trying, this year has turned into the year of live music. Here's what's happened and is on deck. Some great stuff in store!

Jan 18: The Staves and The Civil Wars @ Cain's Ballroom (Tulsa, OK)

April 13: The Avett Brothers @ Brady Theatre (Tulsa, OK)

May 6th: Gregory Alan Isakov @ The Blue Door (OKC, OK)

June 2nd: The Staves and Bon Iver @ Brady Theatre (Tulsa, OK)

July 27: The Avett Brothers (again, they're that good.) @ Chesapeake Arena (OKC, OK)

Looking to add some of these hopefully before the year is up:
- Brandi Carlile
- Ben Rector
- The Head and The Heart
- Mindy Smith

Always searching for Patty Griffin, Glen Phillips, Counting Crows and Ryan Adams.

That's all.

juggle juggle

This is a picture of me juggling.  I'm so daring, right? Well, I'm not very good at juggling. I'm starting to feel the squeeze of life. I remember these times in college. When everyone needed something at the same time, every class had a huge paper due the same day, and you felt like because of all of that - you also were missing out on some great stuff. 

That's what it feels like right now. I've got a paper due, I'm having to miss class due to a fundraising event I planned, said fundraising event, and it's Easter weekend. I want to do yoga, I want to support my friends speaking this weekend, I've got friends having babies, friends who are pregnant, friends having major life stuff, and friends who live in DC that I keep playing phone tag with. DO YOU SEE HOW MANY BALLS THAT IS?! (that's what she said.) 

Oh, and I'm working full-time too.

It's exhausting and I feel like I need more hours in the day to be able to give everything the right amount of attention. I want to be a good employee, I want to be a good student, I want to be a good friend, I want to be a good aunt, I want to be a good neighbor, etc. Obviously, no one can be good at everything all the time. I'm not even sure all the scales have ever leveled out at the same time. But I want to believe they can. 

My mom used to say, "This too shall pass." I find myself saying that aloud, writing it on sticky notes, and trying to tattoo it on my forehead backwards. All of this will come and go. It will be over and I'll be on to the next thing. Win or lose, good grade or bad, a great event or not, Tuesday will come and Wednesday means I start the next thing. It all will pass. 

PS: Final d-word mile-marker is coming up on Saturday. Looking forward to acknowledging it and letting it pass.